Ailurophobia
by thelinksthatconnectus
Summary: Professor Jonathan Crane meets his match when a furry feline joins the family. Domestic Scriddler AU


**I want to note that in this fic Enigma (Edward's daughter from the comics) goes by Emily (as Enigma has no given name in the comics). So her name would be E. Nygma, because yes Edward would actually do that. You cannot tell me otherwise.**

**Here's the original prompt: Imagine your same sex otp has a cat who constantly knocks down their wedding picture/pride flag/something of the sort. B gets fed up with it and says to the cat "god you stupid homophobic cat, you LIVE with a same sex couple." A and A/B's/your OTP's parents can be heard laughing loudly from the other room.**

**I didn't follow it 100% but it was a great prompt to go off of.**

* * *

Jonathan had never wanted a cat. Animals had hardly ever been his forte, not even when he was a child and most of his peers had been desperate to get a puppy, kitten, or fish of some sort. His lab rats were the closest thing he could get to pets, and he much preferred them; at least the little creatures served a purpose.

This beast? Hardly. No matter what defenses could be made about it, there was just no way to claim the creature was useful.

* * *

It had been little Emily's idea. She had simply come home from school one day, her sparkly backpack held up on one shoulder and a drawing of a cat in her small hands. It was a rather messy drawing, a mix of crayon and marker that she had made earlier that day. Edward had looked at it as if it were the Mona Lisa and promptly hung it on the fridge.

"Daddy," she had said, her eyes directly on Edward, "can I please get a kitten?"

The kitchen had been silent for a moment. Jonathan had looked up from a paper he was grading and merely raised an eyebrow. It had seemed so simple back then, just another one of her frivolous requests. The week before she had been asking if she could go to space and for her birthday she had wanted her very own car. It wasn't even the first time that she had asked for a pet, though most of her past requests hadn't been domesticated animals.

Really, he would much rather have preferred a tiger or ostrich to Fluffy. At least one of those would have been interesting.

Seeing no reply, Emily merely turned her head and locked her eyes with Jonathan. "Papa, can we please get a kitten? Please?" Her eyes widened. "Please?"

"No." The words were out of his mouth almost the moment that she finished speaking.

"Why?" She adjusted the weight of her backpack on her shoulder. "Lots of kids in my class have a cat."

"I'm sure they do," Jonathan replied. "That hardly means that you need one as well." He looked back down to the paper that he had been grading. He had always known that this student was slacking off, but his paper was downright atrocious.

"Daddy?"

Finally, Edward spoke. "Papa and I will think about it. Okay?"

"Okay," Emily had replied, her voice lowering.

Once she had left the room, Edward had gone silent. He never actually brought up the issue that night, just did his crossword puzzles and prepared dinner in silence. The cat drawing remained on the fridge right where he had left it.

That should have been the end of it.

A few days later, Emily came home with a piece of paper covered in names. The lettering was awful, the next one even harder to read than the last. Some had written their name in crayon, others in pencil, and a few in Magic Marker. The paper was torn and slightly wrinkled in places.

"What's this?" Jonathan had asked, squinting his eyes at the paper.

"A petition," Emily had replied.

"For what?" Jonathan raised his eyebrow. Edward had been working late that day and had yet to arrive home.

"My teacher told us that if we wanted to prove a point, we needed to start a petition. So I did." Emily beamed, showing the same smile that Edward did whenever he stumped someone with one of his riddles.

"That doesn't explain what this petition is for. People don't just randomly put their names down on a piece of paper."

"The petition is to let me get a kitten!"

It was only then that he finally noticed a cat's, scrawled in one of the paper's corners. It was messy, made with what looked to be colored pencil.

"No."

"But you and Daddy said that you would think about it."

"He and I both agree that we don't need a cat right now." The discussion had never actually come up. Still, Edward was a reasonable man; surely he would understand why they didn't need a cat running around their home. There would be messes to clean up, extra food to buy, vet visits... For as cute as the animals could be, they were far too much of a hassle.

"But..." Emily clutched the paper tighter in her hands. "But I got everyone to sign my petition!"

Did she really believe that he was scared of the wrath of a classroom of five year olds?

"Look, darling, it's quite admirable of you to make a petition. However, we currently cannot get a cat. I'm sorry, but you have to understand that a cat just isn't an option for our home right now."

Emily sniffled. She wasn't crying, but she looked to be on the verge of it. "Okay." She quickly went upstairs to her room.

For the longest time, Jonathan sat at the kitchen table, completely unsure of himself. Part of him wanted to run up the stairs and grab his daughter out of her room and drive her straight to the animal shelter. The rational part of his mind, however, won and simply went upstairs to inform her that they would be going out to get ice cream after dinner. Within moments, she was beaming again.

It had seemed that ice cream had won her over, at least until Edward came home and noticed the name covered paper. By then, Jonathan had started making his signature meal of spaghetti (which was the easiest and quickest to make of the three things that he knew how to cook) and Emily sat in the living room watching TV. The house had been quiet that night, peaceful. Edward had come in through the door with a small on his face, even if his clothes and hair were a bit more rumpled that day.

"What's this?" he asked, laying down his briefcase.

"Oh," Jonathan had said, looking over. He bit his lip. "Just something Emily made with her class."

"Ah, I see," Edward called.

"It's a petition, Daddy!" Emily had called.

"A petition?" Edward raised an eyebrow. "They grow up so fast, don't they, Jonathan? Our little girl is already demanding change from the government."

Jonathan snorted. "Hardly. The petition is to us to get her a kitten. She made her entire class scribble down their name onto that piece of paper."

"Well, it's certainly an original idea."

Jonathan rubbed his temples. "We do not need a cat."

"No, we don't." Edward placed the paper back down on the table. If only Jonathan had remembered to throw it away! "Still, having one around wouldn't be so bad. Cats are intelligent creatures, and I'm sure there's a cute one out there."

"You have got to be kidding me."

"Hey, I had a few cats when I was younger. They were wonderful animals."

"Does that mean that I can have one?" Emily yelled.

"You're not part of this conversation!" Jonathan yelled back.

"It's still an option, Jonathan."

Jonathan merely continued to prepare dinner, scowling down at the spaghetti noodles for the rest of the night. Even after they had all gotten ice cream, Emily was still thinking about kittens and couldn't seem to stop incorporating them into the subject somehow. It was one thing to listen to her chatter on about riddles like Edward did, but an entirely different thing to hear about cats. Riddles were predictable and had an answer. Emily spoke about anything and everything, from a story about cats that her teacher had read to her class in school to a friend who had not one but four cats (Jonathan couldn't help but pity the poor souls who had to live in that home). She chattered a mile a minute.

By the time the night was over, two things were obvious: One, that Jonathan would need to refill his headache medication prescription the next day. Two, that he would need to try harder to get Emily's mind off of cats; he absolutely had to.

Back then the idea had seemed easy, completely plausible even after Jonathan's first attempt. Having the petition around had ruined his chances, but after this there were ways to keep the conversation of cats.

It had been a quick decision to take Emily's drawing to his classroom and hang it up above his work computer. A few students had questioned him on it, asking who made it.

"Anyone famous?" one girl had asked.

Jonathan had chuckled. "She hasn't been featured in any museums yet."

"Well who is she?" the girl repeated. A few others raised their eyebrows.

Jonathan merely held up a family photo and pointed to the small girl in the center of the picture.

Yes, the cat drawing had been out of the house, but the creature itself was by no means out of its bag.

* * *

It was obvious which of the two men that Emily took after more. Though she enjoyed a good spooky story, she could prattle off riddles without a second thought. Her hair was a bright, carrot orange shade, matching her father's exactly. Both had the same facial shape and wore similar clothing choices - whereas other girls her age wore pastel, she commonly wore various shades of green and purple together. Though Jonathan had never actually met Edward's ex-wife, he truly doubted that the girl shared any resemblance to the woman. If Edward were to suddenly come out one day and say that Emily was a part of some government experiment with cloning, Jonathan wouldn't even blink. The idea made sense, in its own little way, even when he would laugh at the idea of it with anyone else.

For all their similarities, it was easy to see how Emily had Edward wrapped around her little finger.

"You know," Edward said one night, shortly after Emily had gone to sleep, "I think that we should get a cat."

"What has she done to you?" Jonathan wrinkled his nose.

"It doesn't just have to do with Emily. As I mentioned before, cats are quite intelligent. They're also much smaller and less of a hassle than a dog. Imagine if Emily was asking for a dalmatian or golden retriever. There would be dog hair everywhere and one of us would get stuck taking it for walks. Cats don't need walks."

"Cats do need litter boxes, shots, food, and whatever useless pet items are currently being sold at a pet store. Doesn't that include something to scratch their paws on and whatever squeaky toys are on sale?"

"Well, yes." Edward paused. "I just thought about it."

The two turned silent for a moment.

"Well," Edward said, "maybe she'll get over it. Give her a few weeks and she'll have moved onto something else."

"Let's just hope it's not a dog," Jonathan replied.

* * *

A persistent personality could get a person quite far in life. With her attitude, Emily would surely be able to compete in the working world and face whatever challenges life threw at her.

Right then, it got her a cat.

"You needed to be more assertive with her," Jonathan said. He sighed as he placed the large bag of cat food down. "Why didn't you just say no?"

"How could I?" Edward replied. "You were there with us at the animal shelter. All those cats, all alone and waiting for an owner - we had to help one of them."

Perhaps he should have known that things were going downhill when Edward had actually agreed to take Emily to the animal shelter. Maybe he could have prepared himself, making sure that it was just a visit - a look around at the various animals inside and nothing more.

The animal shelter had been a small, cold place. The head of the shelter, a charming blonde woman by the name of Selina Kyle, had welcomed the three inside. A few other people had been inside, all of various ages, who were looking at the other animals inside.

"What have you come here today for?" she had asked, giving everyone a bright smile. She looked almost exactly like the picture of her on the shelter's website, though she wasn't as pale as the picture had made her seem and she had gotten a haircut. Everything about her seemed careful - carefully applied makeup, carefully ironed and pet hair free clothing, a carefully polished name badge, and a careful way of walking, as if she were making sure each step that she took was stable. How did she manage to look so clean while working with animals all day?

"A kitten!" Emily said.

The woman's eyes sparkled. "How delightful! I absolutely love cats! I have a few myself and I couldn't know any type of creature to be more loving."

"I do," a voice called from across the room. A man wearing the same worker's uniform as Selina exited a room with a sign overhanging it reading "Birds" (Jonathan supposed that he at least could have been thankful that Emily wasn't dragging him in there). "Birds are far more loyal."

Selina had rolled her eyes. "You keep telling yourself that, Oswald." She turned back towards the three. "Shall I show you the cats?"

"We're just looking around," Jonathan had said.

"Oh, that's fine," Selina said. "The cats always get excited whenever someone comes to visit. There's even an option to play with them."

"Really?" Emily asked.

Selina nodded.

The section for cats was to the left side of the building. Rows of transparent glass cages held the animals. The cats were of various sizes, color, and ages. One had grey digging into its black fur, while a few looked to be hardly more than two months old. Each had information cards stuck to their cages giving the pet's name and past information.

Emily ran around, her eyes wide as she surveyed each glass cage. The room was filled with meows and purrs.

Edward began to wander the room, silently observing the cats and their information cards. Selina pointed towards the various cats and began to tell a bit about each of them.

Jonathan merely stood by the door, one eye on his watch and the other on a nearby black cat. It glared at him with its yellow eyes and he glared back.

Fluffy, he thought, looking at the name card. The cat had a rather shortly trimmed, sleek coat; who had given the creature that name? It was two and a half years old and had already gotten fixed and gotten its shots.

"Dropped off at animal shelter when six months old" the card read.

Who could blame them? Jonathan thought.

"Have you found one that you want to play with yet?" Selina asked.

"No," Emily replied.

"Not sure yet? Well don't worry. I know from experience that once you meet that special kitty you'll know exactly which one you want."

Emily wondered back over to where Jonathan was standing.

Maybe, he thought, glancing towards the door, there is no 'special kitty'.

Emily turned, her eyes widening. She raised her arm, her hand outstretched with a pointing finger. "I want that one."

Selina's eyes widened. "Oh, Fluffy? She's a delightful little creature." She pulled a set of keys from her pocket. "Is that the one that you want to meet?"

Emily had nodded.

That had been his moment of weakness, he supposed. They were already at the animal shelter, surrounded by rows of wide eyed cats, and he hadn't bothered to stop the woman from bringing the cat out. What harm would there be in letting Emily play for a few minutes?

After all, it wasn't as if they were actually going to adopt it.

At least they weren't supposed to.

Jonathan sighed, shaking his head. He was hardly the type to get caught up in his own regrets, but it was hard to not think about what had happened forty-five minutes prior. It was what had led to this whole mess.

"You were there too," Edward said as he pulled the newly bought scratching post out of its box. He wrinkled his nose. "What is this thing, Swedish? You would think with a box as tall as this that we wouldn't have to set it up ourselves."

"You're the puzzle type," Jonathan replied. "You can figure that out."

"Just tell me, Jon," Edward said as he began to pull various pieces of the scratching post out of the box, "did your heart melt at least a little when you saw all those cats? Mine did. I just had to help one of them."

"Hardly."

"It hardly did?" Edward's eyes lit up. "Then it at least did a little."

"It did not!"

"Hey, I was just going off what you said."

* * *

He supposed if anything good came out of this mess it was that Emily finally had her very own companion. She looked at the cat as if it had hung the moon. She cleaned the litter box herself and always made sure to refill the cat's food bowl. Once a week, she would pull out a brush, and once a month would even give it a bath to make its fur shine (that, sadly, needed some adult help and Edward wasn't always around to help).

However, the good hardly outweighed the bad.

Things could be worse, he supposed. With its shortly trimmed clothes, very little hair was left around the house. The scratching post, rather than any of the wooden furniture that Jonathan had inherited from his grandmother, was its go to place whenever it needed to scratch. The cat never tried to run away and had yet to tear out anyone's eyes.

Yet.

Trouble was inevitable, no matter who in the house was causing it. Emily would play a prank, Edward would prattle off riddles for hours on end, or Jonathan would nearly explode the basement in one of his home chemistry tests. That would usually end with him having to clean up chemicals off of the basement floor for weeks.

Fluffy was an entirely different level of trouble. Whether she was crushing his lap under her weight whenever he was simply trying to sit on the couch and enjoy a good book, or stealing one of Edward's jigsaw puzzle pieces (Emily's seemed to always remain in her room and never her cat's mouth), or hissing at the two men (though most often Jonathan), something seemed to set the creature off.

"Are you sure we can't get it de-clawed?" Jonathan asked one night.

"Emily would throw a fit. She's read every book under the sun on cats and has since opposed the idea - something about a cat's health." Edward paused. "I am both a blessing and a curse, at least depending on which side you receive me. Some would hardly worry about me while others would writhe. What am I?"

Had he not had more control over himself, and the riddle not have been so ridiculously easy, then he surely would have thrown his book into the air and stomped off. But that would be irrational, and the last thing that Jonathan Crane needed was for the cat to send him into a-

A-

Oh, this seemed more like a pun that Edward would have made.

A hissy fit.

"It's just," he said, setting his book down. He sighed, reaching a hand up and rubbing his forehead. "This is going to sound ridiculous, but I think that the cat holds something against the two of us."

Edward's face softened. "Oh good, I'm not the only one who sees it."

Jonathan chuckled. "Well, at least my hypothesis has a base. But in all seriousness, why does it hate us? What have we ever done against it?"

Edward shrugged. That was a puzzle even he couldn't solve.

* * *

The crash filled the small house and nearly made Jonathan jump nearly a foot in the air. By the time he had composed himself once more (it couldn't be too serious, he reminded himself; such a fearful reaction was ridiculous and he could only be thankful that neither Edward nor Emily had seen him).

Jonathan hurried towards the noise. "What happened?"

Edward entered the room, shortly followed after by a wide eyed Emily. In the center of the living room, far from the wall where it had been hung up, was a shattered picture frame.

"Stay back, Emily," Edward had said. "There's broken glass here."

Fluffy stood to the side, casually licking at her paw.

"I'll get the vacuum for you," Jonathan said. He sighed. Oh, what had the creature done?

Once he brought the vacuum back, Jonathan finally got to see just what picture the cat had knocked over.

"It had to be this one," Jonathan said. Captured in the photo were Jonathan and Edward, younger by a few years but instantly recognizable. The two were were standing next to each other, their hands interconnected. Both were grinning from ear to ear, dressed in matching suits. Edward was holding a flower boquet.

"Who can blame the thing? My tie was crooked." Edward said.

Jonathan rolled his eyes. "Well I liked the photo."

"At least it wasn't damaged like the frame was."

Fluffy moved past the broken glass and vacuum cleaner and came to stand by Emily. The cat rubbed her head against the small girl's legs.

Emily merely frowned at the creature. "You knocked over Papa's favorite picture."

Despite himself, Jonathan smiled. She had taken the words right out of his mouth.

* * *

He supposed that things could be worse, at least if the pictures that Harleen was showing him on her phone were as bad as they looked. As one of the other psychology teachers at Gotham University, the two knew each other well.

Still, he couldn't wrap his mind around what had possessed her to adopt those two large dogs, nor why her wife hadn't put her foot down. The beasts looked more like hyenas.

"Your place looks wonderful," Pamela commented. "It's very quaint."

"You can thank me for that," Edward said. "Had Jonathan had his way than he probably wouldn't even have installed lights."

Jonathan snorted.

"Well, that would certainly have given the place a creepy vibe." Harleen said. "You should his room over at the university! The place would give any clean freak a nightmare!"

"It is not that bad."

"Oh, it is," Harleen replied. "You and I both know it. Don't your students complain about it too?"

Jonathan opened his mouth to reply but he was stopped by Pamela.

"Thank you," she said, her tone firm, "for inviting us over. It's a shame that we couldn't see your daughter."

"Oh, you will," Edward said. "Don't worry. She's just at her Girls Scout meeting, but should be back before you leave. A friend is dropping her off here afterwards."

Pamela smiled. "Harleen tells me she's quite wonderful."

Jonathan nodded. "Oh, she is."

As if summoned by mention of its owner's name, Fluffy entered the room.

Harleen's eyes widened. "Oh, who is this little guy?"

"Fluffy," Jonathan muttered. "The awful thing is Emily's cat." He supposed he should embrace the time that his daughter was gone to truly speak what was on his mind.

Harleen got down on her knees and reached a hand out towards the cat, who instantly hissed at her.

"Hey!" she said. "What did I ever do to you, fur ball?"

Fluffy turned and glared up at Pamela, but made no other movement towards her.

"No one knows," Edward said. "If it makes you feel any better, Fluffy hates us too."

Seemingly satisfied with what it had seen, the cat scampered off.

"Well how rude," Harleen said, standing up and dusting off her skirt. "At least our babies are nice, right, Pam?"

Pamela snorted.

"Well they're at least nicer than those Venus fly traps of yours. They tried to eat my finger!"

"You were the one who put your hand too close to it."

"Everyone," Edward said, breaking into their conversation. "The food is ready."

"And it smells fantastic," Jonathan said. After a long week, the smell of pasta and freshly baked rolls, just one of the thousands of things that Edward had mastered making, filled his nose and set his stomach rumbling. For a moment, it was as if he had never been hungrier before in his life.

The two entered the kitchen. Edward served the food and the four all sat down and began to chat, about everything from work to friends to future plans.

"Pamela and I have actually considered adopting a kid of our own," Harleen said.

"Congratulations!" Edward said.

"Thank you," Pamela said. "Though we're still working out the details and getting ready."

"Kids are a big decision," Jonathan said. "Not that they aren't worth it, of course."

"Oh, I understand that-" Harleen's voice was cut off by a crash from the living room.

Not this again, Jonathan thought.

He and Edward raced towards the living room. Lying on the floor was an all too familiar photo frame, a new one that Jonathan had bought that wasn't made of glass. Picking it up, he dusted off the plastic surface.

"You vile creature," he said, glaring at Fluffy.

"What does she hold against this picture?" Edward asked.

"I wish that I knew." Jonathan hung it back on the wall before turning back towards the cat. Leaning down, he picked it up and carried it (while it hissed all the way) to Emily's room before closing it inside. "Stay in there and don't cause any trouble."

"Well," Harleen said once the four all sat down together again, "that was interesting."

"Don't tell it to any of my students or they'll pick it apart piece by piece." Jonathan sighed.

"You know," Edward said, picking up a forkful of bigoli but not bringing it to his mouth, "maybe the cat is afraid of something."

Jonathan snorted. "I'd hardly call it that."

"I don't know, I think I may be right. Fluffy could have a very specific phobia."

Harleen chuckled. "Now that would be something to go down in textbooks."

"Oh no, not a new phobia," Edward said. "This one has already been well explored."

"And what, pray tell," Jonathan said, "would that be?"

"Simple," Edward said. "You fear what is real, for I am undeniable-"

"No riddles!" Jonathan said. "Just say it straight."

Edward smirked. "But how can I say it straight when it's homophobia?"

Harleen's laughter filled the kitchen and Pamela looked red in the face. After a moment, even she began to laugh.

"You have got to be kidding me," Jonathan said.

"It's as good of a guess as any. Why do you think the cat hates us?"

"Because, well... It just does! Cats don't need an explanation!"

Edward looked up towards the ceiling and waved his fist at the air. "Stop hating us, you awful cat! You live with a same sex couple!"

That sent their two guests into a fit of giggles again, which Edward quickly joined along in.

"Well I'll say," Pamela said once she had calmed herself down. "Not only do we have politicians who are against us, but now we have cats to worry about to."

"Oh no," Harleen said, "just Fluffy. I know lots of people who are cats and they aren't homophobic. Evil, yeah, but homophobic?"

"Then we truly must have gotten a very special cat." Jonathan said. He sighed.

"You never know," Harleen replied.

"If it makes you feel any better," Pamela added, "plants are quite tolerant creatures."

"Don't tell Emily that," Edward replied, "or she'll just use it as an excuse to grow catnip!"


End file.
